Chapter 5 - The Woman He Couldn’t Buy
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Leah knelt beside Adrian Vale believing he might die.
“Stay with me.”
Blood covered her hands.
Adrian tried to speak.
“Matteo?”
“He’s safe.”
His eyes closed.
“Adrian!”
Federal agents pulled Victor away while paramedics rushed into the terminal.
Gabriel Vale stood in handcuffs watching his son bleed.
He showed no emotion.
Leah hated him for that almost as much as everything else.
At the hospital, doctors took Adrian into surgery.
Leah sat with Matteo beneath fluorescent lights.
Hours passed.
Celeste joined them.
“You love him,” Celeste said.
Leah looked up sharply.
“I met him yesterday.”
“That wasn't an answer.”
Leah looked toward the operating-room doors.
“I don't even know him.”
Celeste smiled sadly.
“Neither did I.”
There was no jealousy in her voice.
Only acceptance.
“What happens to you two?” Leah asked.
“There hasn't been a ‘two’ for a long time.”
Celeste explained that her engagement to Adrian had begun as a strategic arrangement between wealthy families.
There had been affection.
Respect.
But not love.
When Gabriel threatened her sister, fear had destroyed whatever remained.
“I should have trusted Adrian,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“You don't forgive easily.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Celeste stood.
“He needs somebody who won't.”
Adrian survived.
The bullet had missed his heart by less than an inch.
Leah visited once.
Then she disappeared from his life.
Not because she didn't care.
Because she did.
Too much.
She returned to the Grand Aurelia.
The manager had been arrested.
Half the executive staff was under investigation.
The hotel offered Leah a promotion after newspapers identified her as the waitress who exposed Gabriel Vale.
She declined.
She wanted normal.
She wanted Matteo’s medicine.
School mornings.
Laundry.
Bills.
Things she understood.
Three weeks passed.
Then a black car appeared outside her apartment.
Leah walked straight toward it.
The driver lowered the window.
“If Adrian sent you—”
“He did.”
“Tell him no.”
“To what?”
“Whatever rich-person solution is inside that envelope.”
The driver looked at the envelope.
“You want me to tell him you refused without opening it?”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
The car left.
Two days later another envelope arrived by ordinary mail.
Leah almost threw it away.
Inside was a handwritten note.
No money. No favors. Just something Daniel deserved.
There was an address.
Leah went.
It was a small community medical clinic.
A plaque near the entrance read:
THE DANIEL MORENO CHILDREN’S HEALTH FUND
She became furious.
Adrian was waiting inside.
Still pale.
Still recovering.
“You said no money,” Leah said.
“None for you.”
“You think naming something after my brother makes this okay?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because he tried to stop my father and died doing it.”
“You don't get to erase your guilt with a building.”
“I know.”
Again.
That infuriating refusal to defend himself.
“Then what do you want from me?”
“Nothing.”
“People like you always want something.”
He looked at her.
“Dinner.”
Leah blinked.
“What?”
“I want dinner.”
She almost laughed.
“You built a medical fund to ask me on a date?”
“No. I built the fund because Daniel deserved it.”
A pause.
“The dinner is because I haven't stopped thinking about you.”
Leah stared.
“You're insane.”
“I've been told.”
“You're a criminal.”
“Less than I used to be.”
“That's not reassuring.”
He smiled.
It was the first genuine smile she had seen from him.
“I'll work on the phrasing.”
She tried not to smile back.
Failed.
Then remembered herself.
“No.”
Adrian nodded.
“All right.”
That surprised her.
“You're leaving?”
“You said no.”
“You're not going to convince me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone in my old life believed no was the beginning of negotiation.”
He stepped toward the door.
“I’m trying to build a different life.”
Leah watched him leave.
That night Matteo asked a devastatingly simple question.
“Why don't you like Mr. Adrian?”
“I do.”
“Then why did you make him sad?”
Leah stared at her nephew.
“Go brush your teeth.”
“That means you don't know.”
“Teeth.”
Matteo grinned and ran away.
Two days later Leah called Adrian.
“One dinner.”
He arrived without security.
Or at least without visible security.
Leah pointed at a black SUV parked half a block away.
“Seriously?”
Adrian looked offended.
“They're very discreet.”
“I can see them.”
“I said they were discreet. Not invisible.”
Dinner became coffee.
Coffee became walks.
Walks became evenings with Matteo.
Adrian was unexpectedly terrible at board games because Matteo cheated shamelessly and Adrian pretended not to notice.
For the first time in years, Leah’s apartment contained laughter that didn't feel borrowed between bills and hospital appointments.
But happiness made Leah nervous.
Because she had learned that danger often arrived immediately after you began believing you were safe.
Six months after the pier, Adrian invited her to the reopening of the Grand Aurelia.
She almost refused.
Then she decided she was tired of allowing bad memories to own places.
The ballroom looked exactly as it had the night they met.
White flowers.
Golden candles.
Champagne.
Except Leah wasn't carrying a tray.
She wore a deep green dress.
Adrian couldn't stop looking at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You've been staring for ten minutes.”
“I know.”
“Stop.”
“No.”
She laughed.
Then Adrian’s expression changed.
Across the ballroom stood a man Leah recognized.
Marcus.
But he wasn't smiling.
He approached.
“We have a problem.”
Adrian’s body immediately became alert.
“What?”
Marcus handed him a phone.
A financial report appeared.
Millions of dollars had vanished from an account connected to Gabriel’s old network.
“Victor?” Leah asked.
“In prison.”
“Gabriel?”
“Maximum security.”
“Then who?”
Marcus opened security footage.
A woman entered a private bank in Switzerland.
Blonde hair.
Red coat.
Leah’s stomach tightened.
“Celeste?”
Adrian stared.
“No.”
The woman turned toward the camera.
It wasn't Celeste.
But Leah had seen her before.
At the original charity gala.
Sitting behind Adrian.
Watching everything.
Adrian whispered a name.
“Isabella.”
Leah looked at him.
“Who is Isabella?”
His answer made every good moment of the last six months suddenly feel fragile.
“My sister.”
“You don't have a sister.”
Adrian looked at the screen.
“I thought she died with my mother twenty-five years ago.”
Marcus enlarged the image.
The woman held something toward the camera.
A heavy black ring.
Gabriel’s ring.
And written beneath the photograph were seven words:
May you like
Father was only the beginning, dear brother.
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